The What of Disciple Making
“We are not making disciples with any real effectiveness because we have adopted methods that resist the very environment we must create to make them.”
“I speak from the heart. If a seed is unplanted, it remains only one seed, but if it dies, falls to the earth and enters the ground, it will then grow and become many seeds.”
John 12:24*
I love reading this indigenous translation of the New Testament. Because the native languages have a tradition of oral storytelling, they provide a fresh sense of what the writers of the gospels were trying to communicate in a very similar 1st-century culture. It is not so much a word-for-word translation as it is a thought-for-thought translation.
In the verse quoted above I find real insight into Jesus’ words about the seed and what it must do to be productive. No doubt, the first application of this verse, as the context reveals, is to explain why Jesus must die. Through his death and resurrection, the kingdom of God will be opened to men and women everywhere. But Jesus also has a word of instruction for his followers. They, too, must die to their own idea of how to be saved and fully trust him if they are to have eternal life. And if they are willing to do this their life will produce many more seeds. Multiplication.
Before I pursue this line of reasoning any further, let’s step back and remember the great commission of Jesus in Matthew 28. The call that still resonates through the generations is a call to make disciples. Ask anyone involved in Christian ministry, lay or vocational, and they will agree that this is the goal, the call of our Lord, for this church age until he comes again.
Yet, the real question is this: What is a disciple? What is it we are trying to make? One of the best things we do in The Bonhoeffer Project is help you wrestle with your answer to this vital question. What I would like to do here is make the case that we are not making disciples with any real effectiveness because we have adopted methods that resist the very environment we must create to make them.
Now back to our verse as quoted above.
Nature provides so many allegories to the spiritual life, almost like it was planned that way! In this word picture, the seed is the individual who would desire for his or her life to matter. They want their life to make a difference, to be fruitful. They want to leave a legacy that continues on in the lives of others.
We all want this because we are made in the image of God and Jesus put this hunger in each of us. So, Jesus very succinctly and clearly describes what is required to have such a life of impact.
“If a seed is unplanted, it remains only one seed…” The seed cannot remain unplanted and hope to have any impact, any multiplied life in others. A disciple is a seed that has been planted. And the first step in being planted in Christ is to die.
Die? Die to what? Die to your plan for achieving the good life, the fulfilled life, the impactful life, and come under the leadership and lordship of Jesus. Die to your need to be the one in control. Die to your past and ingrained ideas about the Christian life, about God and being a Christian, and submit to the word of Jesus.
The verse is graphic in its description, “...if it [the seed] dies, falls to the earth, and enters the ground, it will then grow.” To die to self is to fall on Jesus and his Word and guidance, his lifestyle and model of making disciples. To enter the ground is to die to my need to be first, to be important and noticed, and to rest in the plan of God for my life.
This is exactly what Jesus modeled in Philippians 2. He humbled himself and died to his own power and protection even to the point of physical death. The result was the Father exalting him to the highest place in the universe, first over all things. Indeed, his seed multiplied!
Just as the individual must die to self to follow Jesus, so we may have to die to our misconceptions about how we make disciples. Let me highlight four very common and ineffective methods we find in churches when it comes to their disciple-making plan.
You can’t make disciples from a distance.
The call to die is very personal and requires time and interaction with another disciple to fully grasp the implications. Sermons, lectures, books, and classes may lay out the call, but the invitation to come and die must be seen in others and wrestled with before it is fully embraced.
My journey is marked by several men and women who lived out this daily call to take up their cross, deny self, and follow Jesus. One of them, Marge Sheets, was home-bound by a chronic lung disease but accepted our request to spend time with her to learn and see how she followed Jesus. She discipled many men and women though she never preached a sermon, wrote a book, or traveled far from her house. I spoke at her funeral and saw the reality of her influence by the line of people wanting to give testimony to Marge’s impact on their lives. Her seed multiplied!
You can’t make what you don’t possess.
One of the real challenges in our ministry with The Bonhoeffer Project is promoting the call to make disciples to pastors who have not been discipled in their own life journeys. They are well-educated and competent at sermon preparation, counseling, and leading the staff, but have no vision for the kind of disciple making I am describing because they have never experienced it themselves. The same issue exists among the folks in the pew. They have heard many sermons, taken classes, and even attended a small group with their spouse, but never been looked in the eye and invited to die to self and follow Jesus. Their understanding of the Christian life is pretty passive. They want to see more people coming to church and “accepting Jesus,” but never consider their role in making disciples who make disciples.
You can’t make disciples without other disciples.
Jesus modeled a team approach to winning the world. This is the power of a small group, whether for good or for ill. If the group is an “incendiary fellowship” (Elton Trueblood) it will be catalytic to all the members. Their heart and enthusiasm will feed the fire of one another. The open and honest sharing of life and struggle will encourage others to do the same. Multiplication will be the natural result, as these disciples hold one another to go and make more disciples. By contrast, a small group where half the people are not really interested in following Jesus or wrestling with what it means to die to self will discourage those who are. This is why the make-up of the group must be intentional, by invitation as Jesus did with his disciples. Iron sharpens iron.
You can’t make disciples without digging deep into the Word.
Jesus was so committed to the importance of God’s word in our life that John called him “the Word” in the prelude to his Gospel. When Marge Sheets discipled women she had them memorize the entire book of Ephesians over the course of their time together. My wife Margie still calls Ephesians her favorite book because of this experience with Marge. Depending on sermons alone to make disciples is like teaching swimming from a book and not from the side of the pool. The Bible must be dug into and memorized and applied to our lives. The best place for this is a small group of like-hearted and like-minded disciples.
If you want your life to count for Jesus, start making disciples of Jesus. You will never be sorry you did.
FOOTNOTES
* First Nations Version New Testament, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 202ndi1.
